HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Huntsville-based artist Shahada Sharelle Abdul Haqq, who grew up in San Francisco, became interested in studying Islam in her 20s when she learned how the Quran protects the rights of women.

Her new book, “Noble Women of Faith: Asiya, Mary, Khadija, Fatima,” just out from Tughra Books, celebrates the lives of Islam’s female role models.

Abdul Haqq, along with many Muslims, laments that cultural and legal habits in many Islamic countries flies against that egalitarian instruction – practices of oppression that, for many in the West, have become the main thing they think they know about Islamic teachings.

So it is partly to counteract that mistaken impression, but mostly to celebrate the four “Foremost women in the universe,” as a traditional teaching by the Prophet Muhammad puts it, that she has released “Nobel Women.”

The book, sumptuously illustrated with Abdul Haqq's luminous acrylic-on-canvas paintings, celebrates the women that Muhammad pointed to as providing examples for both women and men of a faithful life.

“Noble Women of Faith” follows Abdul Haqq's 2008 "Stories of the Prophets in the Holy Qur'an," another illustrated book aimed at children that tells the lives of the 25 male prophets mentioned in the Quran. A certified art teacher, Abdul Haqq's paintings capture a child's wide-eyed imagined views of the ancient tales.

The paintings and stories have resonated with children around the world. "Stories of the Prophets," Abdul Haqq recently learned, has become a worldwide best-seller for the Istanbul-based Tughra Books, which also has a U.S. office.

Of the Four Noble Women, only Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned in the Quran. The other three are from the Hadith, the collected sayings of Muhammad.

"Noble Women of Faith" by Shahada Sharelle Abdul Haqq

Stories without faces

Mary’s story in the Quran and the Hadith differs somewhat from the Christian version. In the Quran, Mary is depicted as never having married.

Mary's food is miraculously provided -- and when villagers decry her apparent immorality for having a baby without being married, the baby Jesus himself speaks up to defend her.

One of Abdul Haqq's illustrations in the section about Mary captures that moment.

The faces of the villagers, depicted to reflect the faces of the earth’s races, reflect their amazement and fear at hearing a baby speak.

That is, much of their faces do – a portion of each of those faces is hidden, as are all of the faces of the Nobel Women themselves.

Islam takes very seriously the prohibition, found in the biblical Ten Commandments, to avoid making images. For Abdul Haqq, an African-American who was puzzled as to why the photographs of God she saw as a child in her mother’s Christian church depicted a Caucasian man, this prohibition is especially understandable.

Those illustrations, she said, had the effect of excluding her and her family.

“We shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think we can create,” Abdul Haqq said. “For me, this adds mystique. Others get to use their imagination based on how others around them look.”

Abdul Haqq's illustrations invite the wondering mind to imagine life in Pharaoh’s Egypt, where Asiya adopts the infant Moses, or in the home of Muhammad himself, where the brave and resourceful Khadija, the prophet’s first wife, and Fatima, their daughter, become the primary earthly supports and comforts of Muhammad.

“Hopefully this book will teach a lesson, give children something to dwell on,” Abdul Haqq said.

The book has been released just in time for Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, prayer and study that began Friday, July 20, 2012. Muslims are encouraged to read through the Quran during the month. Abdul Haqq's book will give children something to study, too.

And while the book is for all children, Abdul Haqq has been especially pleased with the early reactions from the girls at the Huntsville Islamic Center who have been able to read the first copies. The stories, she said, include them in a way that her first book, which featured only the male prophets, does not.